9/10 - Guillermo Del Toro Brings Life Back To The Summer Blockbuster

Rating: 9/10 (13 July 2013)

Enter Pacific Rim, a bold and fresh big summer blockbuster with completely original ideas and technologies, a unique and beautiful visual style, all featuring a time tested conflict and original characters. A bold promise, for sure. But Del Toro and the team have strung together what is quite possibly the best summer blockbuster in years, hands down without question.
What better aspect to talk about first than special effects? Oh man, are they absolutely splendid. The special effects are incredible, unreal at times. Jaegers are designed with intricate detail, glistening in the rain and snow and sleet that they fight in and are brought to life with incredible realism. Moments outside of the action are fantastic too, combining amazing sets and gorgeous backdrops to carry the neo-sci fi style throughout the film. The Kaiju are brought to life with ferocity and gruesome majesty; these big hulking meanies are awesome, ridiculously cool and fun to watch completely obliterate cities. Del Toro is known for his monsters, and Pacific Rim doesn't disappoint.
One of the other high points is the incredible level of detail seen throughout the film. Every fight scene is sensory overload, with a huge amount of detail from realistic physics applied to building chunks, cars, and other structures that give a sort of tangible weight that is missing from most films of the same genre. The remarkable visuals, produced by Industrial Light and Magic (a sub-division of LucasFilm) has done the impossible: they have brought movie magic to the screen, drenched in class and style unseen in just about every single summer blockbuster for the past few years.
And then there is the earth shattering, bone crushing, kaiju smashing action fight scenes. It's like Rock'em Sock'em robots on an unheard of scale, and it's perfectly balanced and respectively exciting to watch. I don't want to spoil anything, but the action scenes are just an absolute joy. An absolute, unadulterated, bring-out-your-inner-12- year-old JOY. And it proves that there can still be plenty of fun to be had in a gigantic summer blockbuster. And it simply never stops being a blast. Brining gigantic scale ideas to life is one thing, but putting that into motion, directing the action, the pacing, the character interaction so that it all combines into one incredible experience; Well, very rarely is that ever done welland here Guillermo struts his expertise and brings the fictional world of Pacific Rim to life.
But the action would fall flat and the pretty images would be filler if it weren't for a convincing human component and a little smarts, which Pacific Rim succeeds mostly to bring that dynamic to the screen. Is it convincing, well written, and well directed? I thought so, in that lovable cheesy summer B movie kind-of way.
The story follows Raleigh Beckett, a former Jaeger pilot out of luck after a major accident involving the kaiju. After some time to see how the other side works and lives, he's brought back to the jaeger team Gypsy Danger for one last crack attempt at stopping the Kaiju. The leading performances here are pretty good, most notably Idris Elba. His performance is strong, one that you can care for and is well written and acted. The rest of the cast, while there aren't any big name stars, is commendable on its diversity (one message that drives forward Pacific Rim), lovable cheesiness and well acted script. You can feel Guillermo's signature character writing style in every one. Despite how minor, they have a shining moment or two (and a laugh here and there!) Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philly) plays a hilarious comedic relief role but ends up being very important to the crux of the conflict. Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) does a swell job as the hero and Rinko Kikuichi (Babel, Sideways) is surprisingly strong and well acted as the heroine of the story. Plus, Ron Perlman plays a kaiju black market dealer and is hilarious; a caricature of modern businessmen. And Ellen McLain (Glados of the Portal Series) acts as the Jaeger AI and has a few portal jokes for fans.
The rest of the elements that make up Pacific Rim are strong too. Ramin Djawadi's epic score is equal parts bombastic and musically memorable. What's cool is that Ramin's score matches up with the action at most points, so major brass drops and orchestra hits line up with the massive smashing punches of the Jaeger vs. Kaiju fights, further producing a cool and very Hanz- Zimmer-y effect. The sound design for the film is top notch too. Sure, it's loud, but there is a method to the madness. Every smash, crash, and subtle movement is in the mix. Dialogue is strong too, and you never have to strain to hear the humans inside the Jaegers. It's a subtle layer that most moviegoers don't even notice, but I greatly appreciatebecause it's kind of hard to care about your characters when you can't hear them!
Is there anything inherently wrong with Pacific Rim? Well, personally, I would've loved to have seen just one more epic fight scene stuck somewhere in the film. But that extra baggage could've pushed the film to the near 3 hour mark. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess! Like I stated before, the characters are a little broadly drawn but it's a more than excusable flaw when the special effects start flooding in.
As I'm flipping through notes and playing the movie back in my head, I can't say that there wasn't a moment where I wasn't entertained. Sure, it's a relatively simple plot, but the level of fun I had in this big monster smash-hit overshadowed any nit-picks I had with the film. It's pure unadulterated entertainment from start to finish, and I wouldn't have Pacific Rim any other way.
9/10 – Golden Summer Award